Zoronor
Zoronor, known as the City of Shadows, is the home of the bladeling race. These strange creatures, who resemble humanoids with blades of wood and ice and steel protruding from their flesh, are ruled by their priest-king and prophet, known as Iron Feather. Iron Feather led his tormented, neglected people to this place long ago and built Zoronor at a large cost of lives and magic. Zoronor is surrounded by the Blood Forest, a hollow shell of wood and thorns that protects Zoronor from the ice shards of Ocanthus. The bladelings worship the Blood Forest as a lesser goddess they name Hriste, the Gray Whisper, and stories have it that new bladelings are born from the fleshy wood of the goddess. The bladelings are xenophobic and bloodthirsty, frequently sacrificing victims by impaling them on shards of dark ice protruding from their goddess's body, hoping to thus feed the Blood Forest and create more of their kind. Perhaps it's only a shadow of Baator, and the bladelings lost shadows of the baatezu. Perhaps it is a shadow of the Forest, as the bladeling druids believe. The bloody grove in the Outlands whose shadow the Forest is is lost to history. The Blood Forest, home and goddess both to the bladeling folk, is one massive plant, a gray, fleshy, leafless tree covered with thorns, winding around itself tightly to protect its children from the icy bladestorms of Ocanthus. It rests imbedded in a large sheet of wicked-sharp ice on that fourth layer of the battle-plane of Acheron, its dark gray invisible in the lightless airy void. Incorporated within it, they say, are the still-living bones and organs of its victims. Among the banes and torments of Zoronor are tall spine-covered buildings within the blood-washed mother wood. The forest-goddess is named Hriste, the Gray Whisper: "Her sap is our blood, her wood is our flesh." Bladelings are born from the thorns and the ice shards that pierce its substance. The druids take the young blade creatures in to the city nursuries, perhaps to find their Names. The Vault of Voices is a great iron vestibule in the center of town, palatial in appearance. In Zorontor there is a ring of eight statues of fallen bladeling heroes. In reality, these are sleeping amnizu sent by Prince Levistus; they will awaken when the bladelings are firmly behind the baatezu cause. The Blood Forest grows slowly over the centuries. Once it had a single hollow center; now there are five different cavern-groves, seperating the expanded city into different levels. The Market Quarter branches in one corner, filled with stalls that sell food sold by the city's hunters (often rust dragon and crow), stygian water purified to drinkability, and slices of bitter meat cut by druids from Hriste herself. Rare and expensive is the flesh of sentient outsiders or goods brought by the few outsiders allowed to enter the city and live. Money is given to each citizen by the city government, according to how well each performs her tasks. Their coins are made of iron, inscribed with sacred runes. In any case, opiates are a product that might sell very well in Zoronor if a canny merchant could find a way to deliver it. Bladelings in Sigil might all be junkies. The Divine Quarter is the location of the College of Sorcery, the Mauseleum of Rust, the Pool of Remembrance, and the statues of fallen heroes. Because of the nature of Acheron, Zoronor is controlled by feuding houses: house Ebon, house Thorn, house Ferric, house Sanguine, house Eldritch, house Martial, house Stoic, house Silverpoint, house Swift Claw, house Deep Razor, house Stigmata. The houses, located in the High Old Quarter, are ruled by a motley collection of self-proclaimed princes, queens, dukes, and so forth, but the true power in the city rests firmly in the hands of the theocracy. Because of the nature of bladelings, they are united behind their priest-king. Iron Feather is the original prophet-king that led the bladeling people to Acheron, fleeing the wrath of both the baatezu on one side and the Celts on the other. House Red Dirk was sent away by the druid priestess Bloodsmoke, who wishes to establish a new tree far from the Prophet's eyes. They have yet to return. Status is determined by duty and obedience, though pride is taken in larger spines and great endurance. Male priests, led by the great Prophet-King, worship a secret goddess called the Unifier. The Unifier is the legendary being who united the warring factions of Baator, causing it to separate from Acheron before the modern planar structure. She is pictured as a woman surrounded with blades. The bladelings believe she went on to create the rest of the planes in their turn, each forming where she blocked the light of creation. Worship of the Unifier is forbidden in Baator; long ago a powerful noble and many devoted followers were exiled in punishment for refusing to reliquish their faith. Curiously, they were not destroyed. They found a race of druidic tieflings in the Outlands. Introducing the Rite of Soul Piercing, they entered the race, and led them to Acheron to continue the worship; the tieflings' druidic magic enabled them to survive there, while the power of the baatezu enabled them to thrive. The constant experiments and the fierce, deep power of Ocanthus caused them to evolve into the alien creatures they are today. To honor the Blood Forest which is their mother and protector. Druid priestesses sacrifice outsiders captured during semiregular hunts; they are crucified on the great thorns that emerge from the walls of their goddess. The souls of their dead are insubstantial shades, dwelling in a grim half-world that is Zoronor and yet lies apart. Bladeling petitioners have two paths: they may rejoin the Mother Tree and be ultimately reborn, or they may go to dwell in the Vault of Voices, singing softly for all time. Amatsu-Mikaboshi is a god of utter evil. He manifests as a humanoid shadow, as an old man with a hooked nose, or as a beautiful woman. Some say he is the secret patron of the bladelings; others say he's their secret tormenter. Perhaps there's no difference. There are no temples to Amatsu-Mikaboshi in Zoronor, but the god has used bladeling-like messengers to communicate with those mortals who recognize him. Supposedly, these are the true bladelings, and the citizens of Zoronor are but reflections. Category:Metropolises Category:Settlements on Ocanthus